Sapphire acquires license for Novo’s obesity treatment program

These potential drug targets were identified using Novo’s proprietary computer model of the ghrelin receptor and already have shown good in vivo proof-of-concept data, according to Sapphire.

William Polvino, president and CEO of Sapphire, said: “Licensing this promising discovery-stage ghrelin antagonist program from Novo Nordisk complements Sapphire’s clinical-stage agonist program and increases the breadth of our ghrelin portfolio. We are pursuing several strategic options for the next stage of this program, namely identifying lead compounds for IND-enabling toxicology studies.”

Financial terms of the licensing arrangement were not disclosed.